Baba Siddique shot dead by contract killers, Bishnoi gang under lens: Sources

NCP leader and former Maharashtra minister Baba Siddique was shot dead by three men in Mumbai's Bandra area on Saturday.

In Short

• Baba Siddique was murdered outside his office in Mumbai
• Accused conducted recce for 25-30 days before murder
• Two arrested shooters said they belong to Lawrence Bishnoi gang

The Mumbai Police on Sunday confirmed that the murder of NCP leader and former Maharashtra minister Baba Siddique was a contract killing incident. The police are probing the possible involvement of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, as the arrested accused have allegedly claimed they belong to the group, according to sources.

The police officials said that their teams are tracing the mastermind behind the murder. The probe has also found that the murder was a pre-planned one and the accused were paid in advance and got delivered their weapons a few days ago.

The 66-year-old leader was shot dead while leaving his office for his residence in Bandra West on Saturday night. A total of six rounds of bullets were fired at Baba Siddique, three of which hit him. The NCP leader was declared dead upon being brought to the hospital.

Two accused--Gurmail Baljit Singh, 23, from Haryana and Dharmaraj Rajesh Kashyap, 19, from Uttar Pradesh--have been arrested, while the third one--Shiv Kumar from UP--is on the run. Teams from the Mumbai Crime Branch have left for five locations outside the state, including Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh, to apprehend the third accused.

The arrested accused claimed during interrogation that they belonged to the gang of Lawrence Bishnoi, a notorious gangster currently in jail, Crime Branch sources said. The Bishnoi gang was allegedly involved in the firing at the Bollywood star Salman Khan.

According to officials, the accused claimed to have conducted a recce of the area for the past 25-30 days in preparation for the murder. Each shooter was given Rs 50,000 for expenses and all three had been living in a rented house in Kurla for nearly a month, they added.

While the police arrested two individuals, a third accused, directly involved in the shooting, remains at large. Police sources stated that all three accused arrived at the shooting spot by auto-rickshaw and waited there for some time before opening fire on Siddique. The officials suspect that another person, who was providing information to the shooters, was also involved in the murder.

THE SUSPECTED BISHNOI HAND

Siddiqui is known to be close to several Bollywood stars, including Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, and Sanjay Dutt. The Bishnoi gang has a history of allegedly targeting individuals close to Salman Khan, whom they threatened with death for hunting a blackbuck, an animal the Bishnoi community worships.

Last year, the gang fired at the house of Punjabi singer Gippy Grewal in Canada after he appeared in an album with Salman Khan. The gang also posted on social media, claiming that Grewal treats Salman like a brother.

According to sources, one of the shooters who fired at Salman Khan's house in April died under suspicious circumstances in a Mumbai police station, and it angered the Bishnoi gang.

While Lawrence Bishnoi remains in jail, three wanted gangsters are running the gang from the United States. Anmol Bishnoi, Lawrence’s brother, who lives in the US, is operating the gang and coordinated with the shooters who targeted Salman’s house, according to police. Another gangster, Goldy Brar, associated with the gang, was involved in the murder of Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala. The third one is Rohit Godar, who took responsibility for the shooting at Salman Khan’s house through social media.

Sources at the Delhi Police Special Cell, which is planning to send a team to Mumbai, said that it is believed that the suspected gangster's motive behind Siddique's murder was to establish his influence in Mumbai.

Baba Siddique, who represented the Bandra (West) seat three times in the assembly, is a prominent political figure from Mumbai. He served as Minister of Food and Civil Supplies and Labour under Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh between 2004 and 2008. In February this year, he switched to the Ajit Pawar-led NCP.

The funeral of Siddique is expected to be held on Sunday evening. He will be buried at around 8.30 pm at Bada Kabarastan in Mumbai's Marine Lines. The NCP has cancelled all party programmes scheduled for today to mourn the death of its leader.